#undertale: era of integrity

[nonsensical-questions]

Errmmm annual update,

How are things goin for ya (not about sensetale specifically, just in general)

I appreciate the general check up as i haven't posted anything in a bit, but for a little update i guess, got a new job, pays me more and doesn't give me as many hours, this is a good thing as i can pay my bills just fine without having to work as much, but i am getting called in a lot and i need more money in general so i'm sorta trying to build stuff up... got a new name, i'm still keeping my old one i just have two first names i switch between now so that was funky but it made me feel a little better so it's nice got on HRT a while ago and it's fucking with me emotionally i think either that or i'm experiencing periods as it's not all the time, but it's too soon to tell if it's this or that so right now i'm just enjoying the general effects of it and learning how to deal with stronger emotions, this is a good thing i no longer feel as dysphoric about myself but it still comes from time to time as for projects and stuff i'm working on? got quiet the load honestly, no progress on sensetale for mental health and general self confidence issues, it's still on hiatus until i can get good enough to make the sprites i need or find someone willing to help me out but in non-sensetale related projects... well... i did wanna keep some stuff a secret but some of these have been in the work for a while so... what the hell might as well show some off I appreciate the general check up as i haven't posted anything in a bit, but for a little update i guess, got a new job, pays me more and doesn't give me as many hours, this is a good thing as i can pay my bills just fine without having to work as much, but i am getting called in a lot and i need more money in general so i'm sorta trying to build stuff up... got a new name, i'm still keeping my old one i just have two first names i switch between now so that was funky but it made me feel a little better so it's nice got on HRT a while ago and it's fucking with me emotionally i think either that or i'm experiencing periods as it's not all the time, but it's too soon to tell if it's this or that so right now i'm just enjoying the general effects of it and learning how to deal with stronger emotions, this is a good thing i no longer feel as dysphoric about myself but it still comes from time to time as for projects and stuff i'm working on? got quiet the load honestly, no progress on sensetale for mental health and general self confidence issues, it's still on hiatus until i can get good enough to make the sprites i need or find someone willing to help me out but in non-sensetale related projects... well... i did wanna keep some stuff a secret but some of these have been in the work for a while so... what the hell might as well show some off

vs. mad mew mew genocide route edition! i love mew mew as a character and i've been really inspired to make something relating to her i just didn't know what to, well recently i got my insperation and have been coding it out, don't know what the ending is currently but i have a rough idea of what i want to do, hopefully you will all enjoy it the song is Dummy! from UNDERTALE: Alternate, thank them so much for letting me use the song! couldn't hope for a more fitting battle theme that just so happened to accidently match with the character i was making the fight for lol I have more projects i'd love to show off but tumblr only allows for 1 video so you'll have to have the shitty gifs instead

after undertale yellow released I loved the concept of everything so much but i really wish some more attention to the lore had been put in, but hey there was still some really cool stuff they did like i loved the guns and ammo types, so i decided to work on what it would look like for the blue soul which i nicknamed melody as her healing things are music notes and clovers are well clovers, this spawned a whole thing where i started making characters and ideas and... honestly i don't think it will go anywhere soon.... if at all but hey a mouse can dream huh? well i might as well show off some characters with little to no context huh?

not all of these are major characters but just stuff I wanted to show off, if people wanna make art or ask about it, the au name is official "Undertale: Era of Integrity" but for now you just get the designs and simple mechanics that i showed off, i have more to talk about

an underfell project! this was mainly learning to code KR and fuck around with my idea of an underfell au that takes the canon version and makes small tweaks here and there, i made some sprites to show what i mean

again not really giving out much info, if people wanna know more let me know i guess! no official name just some underfell concepts i've been working on I do wanna make some playable fights eventually but i'd need to work out some kinks first to make it all work some other projects that feel too small to sorta show off stuff of are a Tale's end sans fight (like from the comic) i was working on with friskbits actually helping quiet a lot and a help_tale sixbones fight (again from the comic) both are almost done but also both have big hurdles i'll need to get past before i finish it, for tale's end it's just... writing, frisky is normally busy and i had major writers block, writing for what you may ask? the comic surely has most of what i need right? haha I wish, there are so many options and it all comes back to that stupid flower, i have like 20 endings based on if you kill or not and then reset and do a certain action, I have the main endings coded but the great flowey remembering my resets makes it way harder to actually finalize the sixbones fight is mainly the absorb stuff, as we never saw that in the comic so i sorta had to improvise and making it looks cool! but I'm sorta just winging it i guess i'm also working on a mettaton date, this one with an overworld, you know how alphys, undyne, and papyrus all got dates? oh and sans too sorta, well toby literally mentioned dating mettaton on the kickstarter and never delivered! so i'm doing it myself, date the sexy rectangle... eventually i'm still on the overworld stuff and need to finish designing mettatons room fully, i'd show some stuff off but i'm not sure how long it's gonna be plus this post is already hella long so just gonna cut this here and maybe talk about it later there is some other stuff here and there but it's mainly just ideas, I had an idea of something something deltatravelers something something OFF but i'm prob not even gonna do that, maybe i'll make some sketches or mock ups for it later but eh i wanna finish projects first i have too many on my plate currently I know a lot of people might be mad, that i'm working on other projects and stuff while im supposed to be working on sensetale, but I'm trying to improve skills and general get better at making the content so people can enjoy it more, and when i was ready i would try and work more on sensetale maybe remake the area do new poses make new characters or sprite something unique and cool, one of the reasons i don't post or even answer questions on this is i don't want to get people's hopes up that this will return soon, i really want it to return soon but I don't have the resources or time to commit to it I had a thought that maybe, I should make this a general au project stuff, so I can show off more stuff and see what people like but i've had 20 or so projects i've never finished. I wouldn't want to show all this cool stuff off and never deliver on it. But perhaps if that is what would everyone would enjoy more, seeing progress and stuff i'm working on, if people would be okay not seeing sensetale in favor of more content? just food for thought, i want to see what people think before i act.

[megaminds-megamilkers]

A dissertation on the taxonomy of the Tumblr Sexyman

Evil or morally ambiguous in their source material, they bring a certain trill factor that stimulates fan interaction

Originates from an unexpected piece of media that did not primarily cater to female sexual fantasy. True Sexymen are made, not born.

Sexymen stand on their own; the primary fan focus is not on a specific ship pairing or the media the character came from but rather easily consumable content of the character

Character design warped and personified through fanart to unrecognizability, often more popular than faithful reproductions

Deviation from canon characterization not a concern and frequently encouraged

More than a one-off joke, must have a dedicated following

Consider the Lobster Mushroom (Hypomyces Lactifluorum)

Stay with me, a parasitic fungus that colonizes mushrooms, typically of the genera Lactarius, and Russula, these host species are similar in form with some distinguishing feature, but once colonized by H. Lacfifluorum, those features are destroyed and the resulting specimen is transformed into the Lobster Mushroom. Likewise, the host species of T. Sexyman may vary, what distinguishes them as Tumblr Sexymen is their resulting fandom behavior.

*The scientific name of this species has been designated as Tumblr Sexyman, I considered alternatives like T. Lagnos hominis or Tumblri Seximan but decided to prioritize clarity

Notable examples of T. Sexyman presented in chronological order:

* These specimens were chosen based on my own experience of Tumblr during the Sexyman era, there may be some oversight on characters that did not frequently appear in my sphere of activity but I have done my best to curate a representative sample

Jeff the Killer (2008)

Originating outside Tumblr yet possessing all the traits to qualify as the first popularly recognized Tumblr Sexyman.

More emphasis on fanfiction than many others of the species, but the fanart interpretations of the original low resolution image played an integral part in his classification as a member of T. Sexyman

Loki (2011)

The only live action character I included in this list, this specimen demonstrates more T. Sexyman traits than its contemporaries

lacking a clear romantic relationship in cannon, fans felt free to remove him from the surrounding cast and put him in different scenarios

Onceler (2012)

Brought the concept of Sexyman to Tumblr and the wider internet’s conscience through unavoidable saturation of the blogging sphere and introducing novel ideas such as “self-cest”

An entire ecosystem sprung up of bloggers roleplaying various versions of the Onceler, entirely separated from the Lorax movie The most quintessential example of a T. Sexyman specimen

Bill Cipher (2012)

Perhaps the most egregious example of twinkification amidst fierce competition

In the field, I observed far more people dressed as the Sexyman version rather than following traditional approaches of cosplaying an object à la Tardis dress or cardboard recreation

The fucking clock guy I guess (2014)

Much smaller cultural footprint than the others but with a persistent passionate fanbase, one of few qualifying examples out of similarly cited entries like the Geico gecko and the man in the yellow hat that only exist to shock outside observers

The first autofill result when I went to google DHMIS because I did not remember his name was “human Tony”

Sans Undertale (2015)

The undeniable impact left by this specimen on the Tumblr ecosystem and the fact that the T. Sexyman evolution of this character also thrives on the wider internet alongside those that adapted to different social media ecosystems mark him as defining figure of the species.

It was actually quite difficult to find humanized fanart that fit the conventions of the time, but there is plenty of alternate universe self-cest characteristic of the species T. Sexyman

Official winner of the 2022 Tumblr Sexyman contest

Hazbin Hotel (2019)

Due to the sometimes unpredictable process of T. Sexyman parasitization, this is one of the only examples of successful commercial cultivation of the species

Entering the Tumblr ecosystem during the decline of T. Sexyman populations, it still garnered a substantial fandom

Notes on Taxonomy

The following examples are characters frequently classified as Tumblr Sexymen that I believe lack certain defining features to positively identify them as specimens of T. Sexyman. However, there is debate on how broad the definition of Tumblr Sexymen should be, and there are some interpretations that could lead to the inclusion of these characters. For now, I have designated these individuals as an as yet unidentified member of the genus Tumblr, due to the notable impact of their presence on the platform during the same time period as the boom of the T. Sexyman population.

Severus Snape (1997-2007)

A classic example of the misunderstood loner archetype which has existed long before the proliferation of the Tumblr Sexyman

The majority of the fanwork does not separate him from his original context of the Harry Potter universe, and much shipping is done with other HP characters

Snape Wives (Snapeists), a group of women who formed a cult around the fictional character that they believed to be a deity who existed outside of and before the books, created a microclimate quite different from where T. Sexyman thrive, leading me to believe this particular specimen has made some evolutionary adaptations that set him apart from T. Sexyman

Supernatural (2005)

Rather than the type of transformative work characteristic of T. Sexyman, the vast majority of Supernatural’s presence on tumblr consisted of aggressive infection of unrelated posts with GIFs, spreading the fandom throughout the entire Tumblr ecosystem and occupying a different ecological niche

While fans certainly found the characters sexy, at the time, the main focus was shipping and not character specific fandom

Hannibal Lecter (2013)

The only thing that came close to the insanity of the Onceler fandom, there were endless iterations of Hannibal characters, most notably as every obscure character played by the same actors, and mythological creatures of every stripe

Hannibal Lecter fits nearly every T. Sexyman identification criteria except for one, He is inextricable from Will Graham, who is not a Tumblr Sexyman but a proto-poor little meow meow

The elusive Tumblr Sexywoman

The proliferation of T. Sexyman as a species was due to the overabundance of wild creation and consumption of transformative fan content, largely attributed to young women whose attention and energy were focused on sexy men. There are also fewer examples of chaotically evil female characters in popular media similar to the host characters that typically become T. Sexyman, though the ones who did fit the bill were popular among small sapphic circles like Doctor Olivia Octavius and Eda the Owl Lady. Notably, the most popular Sexywomen, or rather, the only ones who qualify as T. Sexywoman, are all MILFs, including Lady Dimitrescu who migrated from Twitter and immediately adapted to the new climate.

Branch evolutions of T. Sexyman

In the year 2022, wild populations of T. Sexyman are near extinct. Though many nostalgia blogs and meme pages have successful captive breeding programs, reintroduction has been largely unsuccessful due to changes in the Tumblr ecosystem. Descendants of T. Sexyman have now evolved to fill new ecological niches, with the most notable species being T. Normie, T. Meowmeow and T. Babygirl.

My poor little Meow Meow (T. Meowmeow)

A Poor Little Meow Meow is a character that is pathetic, beaten down by their narrative and generally struggling who nevertheless continues on, not through some intrinsic optimism or determination, but because of a combination of pride, hubris and responsibilities outside their control.

Fans delight in their response to misfortune with a kind of detached, morbid curiosity whether watching their struggle elicits pity like one feels for a shivering wet chihuahua or an uncontrollable lust.

Fanwork often focuses on depicting their lowest points and creating new scenarios for them to suffer through for comedy as often as drama.

T. Meowmeow could be conventionally sexy if they were not who they are or in their situation, that fans prefer them as they are is a defining feature of the species

Unlike T. Sexyman, when T. Meowmeow are sexualized, fans tend to act out emotional conflicts through them rather than see them as an idealized romantic partner

While T. Meowmeow favor male hosts, it is much more gender neutral than T. Sexyman, this adaptability has allowed T. Meowmeow to survive and thrive outside of its native habitat.

He’s my Babygirl (T. Babygirl)

Mutation of previously adjacent species to T. Sexyman

Change in fan reception of long-established characters in the Tumblr ecosystem

Applied to characters that embody masculine ideals to a pathological degree, instead of hitting hypermasculinity, they circle around and come off with a queer slant

Beginning as an ironic movement, T. Babygirls have gained genuine fans whether those people had a connection to the source material beforehand or not

Thank you for scrolling so far, please leave me any feedback you have on my classifications

[erigold13261]

WAIT UNDERTALE???? HELL YEAH!!!

Yup! Undertale is going to be a Future media!

Though Chara is alive close to the post-timeskip era. Probably not yet alive during the post-timeskip era, but they will be around "soon" as monsterkind is formed and then there has to be a war that pushes them underground and Chara ends up down in the underground.

Most likely reactionaries against entities push monsters under the ground because they saw how the domains got fixed and hated it. This is probably the big trigger for the 1000 years of war and chaos that ends up happening in the Eriverse that really fucked over the human population.

But yes! Undertale is going to be somewhat a part of the Eriverse! I say somewhat because Steven, Mana, and Luna probably won't be going there at all until after Frisk sets the underground free themself. It will be more of an aftermath situation and helping monster entities integrate with other entities, humans, and robots once again after being sealed away for centuries.

[curious-minx]

Notable 2020 Video Game Soundtracks That Can Be Enjoyed As Standalone Experiences

Video Game Music is gaining recognition, with many soundtracks receiving vinyl pressings, orchestral concert reviews, and an increasing presence on music streaming platforms such as bandcamp and Spotify. We’re also witnessing the uprise of indie video game development teams where games are being made by the sort of passionate type of game designer that takes soundtracks seriously.  Soundtracks by small teams of developers such as Celeste, Undertale, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, RuneScape, and Lisa: The Joyful are titles with soundtracks that easily stand up against the likes of bigger budget productions made by reliable sources of video game music like Square-Enix and Nintendo.

2020 is no exception in terms of having one of the biggest budget soundtracks around with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which builds upon a legacy of industry-standard-creating soundtrack work. Taken as a whole, Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s soundtrack is clocking in at over 8 and half hours of music. The soundtrack has three composers with the Beethoven of video game music, Nobuo Uematsu, most notably coming out of retirement to get the job done.  Here are some other amazing 2020 video game soundtracks more conducive for standalone background listening:

TETRIS EFFECT by HYDELIC 

Genres: EDM, Ambient Pop and straight up Ambient 

Describing this album makes me feel like I’m some sort of burnt out fanciful raver, head permanently lodged in the clouds. The level of giddy technicolor enthusiasm rivals that of Icelandic Sigur Ros frontman Jonsi, but if he wanted to keep his post-rock firmly planted in the outdoor music festival on Mars territory. Despite the album’s notable two hours runtime, each and every song feels like its own uniquely crafted composition, no repetitive motifs or nostalgia-baiting.

There is unfortunately still a Tetris movie in some sort of shaggy state of development in Hollywood right now. The movie is being billed as a dull biopic about the creator of the Tetris game. Whereas listening to Tetris Effect you imagine a Tetris movie directed by someone more fitting like the Wakowskis. Tetris Effect’s opening song “Connected (Yours Forever)” is a bonafide vocal pop song, like a more sugary CVRCHES-style cooing of the lyrics:

“I’m Yours Forever

There is No End in Sights For Us,

Nothing Can Measure the Kind of Strength Inside Our Hearts,

It’s all connected we’re all together in this life, don’t you forget it

We’re all connected in this”

Try your best not to imagine a cast of Hollywood’s most beautiful plucky orphan mutant misfit youths using the power of Tetris to heal a broken and dying planet!

Notable Track: Next Chapter

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HADES by DARREN KORB

Genres: Progressive Metal, Folktronica, Folk Metal, Dimotika, Greek Folk Music

Darren Korb has become one of the most notable video game composers of the past decade. Korb, an integral member of the Supergiant family, continues to outdo himself with each and every soundtrack. Bastion and Transistor originally found Korb creating a niche for himself with downtempo folk-infused electronic soundscapes and even some vocal pop with collaborator Ashley Barrett. Hades is an altogether different beast for Korb, who much like the developers of Hades, have found themselves at the height of their powers.

Korb also contributes vocals on this album, and I can say without hesitation that these are some of the nicest vocals I’ve ever heard from a video game music designer, because video game musicians are bonafide musicians.The album clocks in at two and half hours and separate from its game is still an absolute thrill ride.

Notable Track: In The Blood

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DEFECTIVE HOLIDAY by MECHATOK

 Genres: Ambient Trance, Balearic Beat, Progressive Electronic, Nature Recordings, Spoken Word, New Age

One glance at the album artwork is all it took for me to know that I must listen to this album. Defective Holiday is an indie walking simulator that is explicit about its intentions: a lightly interactive one hour experience. This soundtrack clocks in at only 31 minutes and it is purely the most conventional album in terms of length.

Last week in late November, Mechatok announced a collaboration with one of the leading zoomer Swedish cloud rap mavericks Bladee, the cofounder of the Drain Gang. Last month gives a pretty clear picture of what kind of circles Mechatok is floating in on. Highly online gonzo vaporwave maestro James Ferraro is another apparent influence on this soundtrack, especially regarding the way the sinister mundane dialogue is woven into the soundscape. There’s one particular track on the Defective Holiday OST, “Rescue Shot Buibo”, that is adorned with standard trap-style drum fills that give the album a shot of energy before wandering back off into the haze. This soundtrack and video game is all about the pure vibe and aesthetic nature that are currently trending in these extremely stressful times.  In a time where all of our holidays were defective from the very start, I think the casual walking simulator will remain a genre high in demand. I have a feeling we’re going to hear a lot more from this empathetic young German.

Notable Track: Valley

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Last of Us II by Gustavo Santaolalla, Mac Quayle (and Ashley Johnson)

Genres: Ambient, Cinematic Classical, Dark Ambient, Spanish Folk Music 

L

The Last Of Us is a horror game where the music itself is arguably playing a critical character role, which can only be expected billing two titans of audio visual soundtracks. Of course Academy Award winner Santaolalla knows his way around a soundtrack. Wielding a resume of astonishing versatility in various TV and film projects, he might have found his higher calling in not only video games but in the horror music canon. Last of Us is an extremely emotional series, and with the wrong soundtrack, the experience could become insufferably bleak. The occasional  splashes of color and light are what make this soundtrack so unsettling and eerie. Not since Silent Hill 2’s Akira Yamaoka has there been such an effective standalone horror video game soundtrack experience. No wonder Gustavo Santaolalla is one of the only video game composers integral enough to the game to warrant a cameo banjo-playing character model based off of him.

As if having one major composer from prestigious TV and movies wasn’t enough, Mac Quayle, composer of the whole Mr. Robot series, contrasts against Santaolalla’s acoustic contributions. The soundtrack itself is sequenced in a way that switches between the two composers. “The Cycle of Violence” composed by Quayle, a track that more than lives up to its name, is immediately followed by Santaolalla’s somber “Reclaimed Memories.” This dance between violence and heart is what the Last of Us excels at as a franchise, and that is why this soundtrack is an effective stand-alone experience.

The only disappointing part of the soundtrack is that Ashley Johnson, voice actor of Ellie’ three songs, is not included in the game’s official tracklist. Ellie’s “Take On Me” a-ha and “Future Days” Pearl Jam covers have made a little history by being the most powerful songs sung by a video game character. When Ellie sings and plays on her guitar they aren’t some little Easter egg idling moments to provide levity for this heavy revenge horror story. These songs are used to make some of the strongest character development choices made by a video game character seen in recent years. Ellie is joining a small club of singing video game characters alongside Parapa the Rapper and  maybe the cast of obscure Atlus title Rhapsody: Musical Adventure.

Notable Track: Unbroken

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Persona 5 Royal Straight Flush Edition by Shoji Meguro 

Genre: Acid Jazz, Alternative Rock, Alternative Metal, Lounge, Jazz-Funk 

This is one of those soundtracks that, much like Nobuo Uematsu’s work in Final Fantasy, is really the heart and soul of the entire Persona franchise (and his work in the adjacent Shin Megami Tensei universe is equally as noteworthy). Persona 5 Royal finds Meguro making his most complete, funky, and otherworldly opus that sounds like no one else in the biz.

You will find many people online scouring message boards, subreddits, bandcamp features, and Yahoo Answers looking for more music like Persona 5. Outside of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, how many other games are packed to the brim with truly foxy songs!? Persona 5 could not predict how badly the title “Throw Away Your Mask” would age, despite the game being more than ahead of its time with the majority of NPCs wearing PPE. Be a good Joker, put on your mask and keep chasing Meguro’s acid jazz-infused dragon through many more semesters to come.

Notable Track: I Imagine

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Streets of Rage 4 by Olivier Deriviere & Various

Genres: Electro House, Nu Jazz, Synth Funk, Acid House 

Composer Olivier Deriviere is a living definition of a video game soundtrack journeyman. He has a career stretching back to the early 2000s working on notable big budget titles like the divisive 2008 Atari fifth Alone in the Dark installment and Remember Me, an unsung buried gem from the PS3/360 era Capcom title. Remember Me is where Deriviere’s electronic leanings started becoming especially prominent in his sound. On the Streets of Rage 4 soundtrack Deriviere has completely come into his own element, developing a whole new sense of campy playfulness.

Electronic French House music can be a divisive genre. For every Daft Punk commercial success there is a band that ruffles feathers like Justice. I sense a strong presence of late departed French House titan Philippe Zdar of Cassius as well. If you’d played this soundtrack for me out of context, I would have guessed an obscure voguing tape from the 80s or a really talented mysterious DJ set. Instead, this is a sequel to a classic beat em up franchise that left a portion of players disappointed by the game’s four hour playtime. The soundtrack is over an hour and fifty minutes long of high octane House music bliss. Much like the Tetris Effect soundtrack, it is truly impressive how much depth these tracks have when they could have easily been nostalgic recycled beats. Sometimes a game’s soundtrack can offer more post game enjoyment than an actual game.

Notable Track: Chill Or Don’t

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Hylics 2 by Chuck Salamone & Mason Lindroth 

Genres: Experimental Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Hypagogic Pop, Stoner Rock, Jazz-Rock

A soundtrack that comes closest to capturing the experience of hearing the Earthbound or Katamari Damacy soundtracks for the first time. The Hylic indie RPG series is a wonderful and strange beast that is ready to frolic and show its playful side. Hylics is a part of a recent uprising of indie games being developed on the RPG Maker software. 2020 year has left us all with variations of the same stressed out adjectives: Weird. Messed Up. Surreal.

Why not listen to an album from a game that is the perfect embodiment of that surreal mantra? Step away from your computer, draw a bath, and put this album on. Thank me later!

Notable  track: Xeno Arcadia

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Ultrakill: Infinite Hyperdeath (Act I Soundtrack) by Heaven Pierce Her aka game developer Arsi “Hakita” Patala 

Genres: Drum and Bass, Industrial Metal, Ambient, Progressive Metal, Acidcore 

Nothing says “modern indie game development” more than a game built completely from the ground up by one person. Ultrakill’s developer “Hakita” is one of those kindly folkloric DIY figures that make video games such an extensive art form. The game is a painstaking gloriously bloody ode to Dooms of yesteryear but with plenty of its own fine tuned style. The perfect soundtrack for when you’re painting your personal Hell a darker shade of gore, but also would really like to kick your ass into shape if you need an adrenaline boost to your Quarantine blues.

Notable Track: Panic Betrayer 

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Risk of Rain 2 by Chris Christodoulou

Genres: Progressive Rock, Space Rock, Space Ambient,  Post-Rock

Something about the country of Greece brings the best kind of futurism out of the country’s composers. Christodoulou’s Risk of Rain 2 soundtrack is no Bladerunner knock off. This soundtrack for the colorful sci-fi indie rougelike is punchier and less nocturnal than your typical synth-heavy sci-fi soundtrack. Risk of Rain is one of the more successful Kickstarter series around and has the best quality an indie game can have: it feels like a labor of love on all fronts. There’s no reason a rougelike like Rain of Ruin or Hades needs a soundtrack this good, but Christodoulou casts a spell with his electronic-driven prog rock that makes you want to keep respawning. A huge missed opportunity if Christodoulou does not get to soundtrack an earnest sci-fi action-adventure for even big screens. Oh! This soundtrack also features some spoken word segments from Werner Herzog; what more do you need to know?

Notable Track: The Rain Formerly Known As Purple

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Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus by Guillaume David

A big debut project from an up-and-coming composer Guillaume David. Prior to the making of this soundtrack, David was a video game voice actor who worked on a Resident Evil Devil May Cry crossover voicing the character of “Hunk.” Warhammer 40K might become a franchise that more people will care about solely based on the quality of this installment’s soundtrack. When you see the title Warhammer 40,000, what sort of sounds come to mind? If you guessed “Neo gothic cyber Gregorian chants that seamlessly melds the ancient and futuristic”, you would be correct. A turn-based action game could possibly fall into dull territory, but with a visual identity as strong as Warhammer 40K  melded with a suitable musical atmosphere, the action and world becomes irresistible. This soundtrack is a brisk 56 minutes and the other soundtrack on this list with a more conventional runtime. Not a second is wasted on this dynamic and fantastical soundtrack. Prior to hearing this soundtrack I had no intention of ever looking into playing a game based off of something as convoluted as Warhammer 40K, but now I very much want to know what these robot priests are about. That’s the magic of a quality soundtrack.

Notable track: Millenial Rage

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Honorable Mentions:

Happy Listening! 

[toiletcatiswatchingyou]

【Study-referral】Future?The expansion of Stg elements in independent&Light games

In this era, in addition to the traditional hard core stg. Some small stgs are incorporated into indie games. Makes these independent games more hardcore and difficult-this is just being integrated into it, does not mean that they are all stg. They are more than combined with rhythm games and adventure stories. This increases the threshold and difficulty of the game, but it will not often fail when the hard core is introduced to the traditional stg, giving people a negative experience and making it difficult for light players to play. At the same time, such independent games often have a strong personal artistic style, which is loved and respected by many players.

Undertale is a good example. Its game mechanism combines rpg and stg as well as other action elements. Producer Toby Fox called himself a fan of ZUN and was deeply influenced by Touhou Project.

Kirby is a well-known light game. Its users are mostly light players, including novices who are not good at cross-boarding games, and there is almost no penalty for failure. It is a relatively simple game. In many of Kirby's works, staff used stg elements to join the boss battle (hal has experience in developing stg in the fc era). Including the early Dream Fountain, the acclaimed return to dreamland, and Kirby Super Star. These games have relatively well-known stg elements, which give people a unique and novel feeling during the long 2d horizontal board game. The difficulty of Stg can control some of the player's pressure. These situations are mostly the atmosphere rendering before the boss battle, or the relaxation after the boss battle. HAL is satisfied with this aspect.

In this way, more players can generally accept the stg mode. The short stage process will not be too difficult. Because the game focuses on other elements, the main purpose of the stg element is to add more playability and game elements to prevent players from getting bored in the process. It will not embarrass players by setting too high difficulty in this part. Maybe this transformation will become the mainstream way for stg to survive in the future

Hal. 2011. Kirby's Return to Dream Land

Hal. 2011. Kirby Mass Attack

ProsafiaGaming. 2020. Undertale - All Bosses & Endings. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Elm055MrY&t=1065s> [Accessed 1 October 2020].

Toby Fox. 2015. Undertale

[evilelitest2]

How does one deal with the "practice what you preach" dilemma I seem to run into regarding socially responsible media consumption, the idea that if you want to talk about sexism or racism or any other -ism on the internet, consuming media that contains those elements is hypocritical and undermines your own personal integrity and the argument you're attempting to make? It's like "This movie/game looks fun, but someone said it's racist/sexist so if I want to be a good ally I must scorn it."

I totally reject that notion, in fact i would go further and say that is completely myopic, stupid and self destruction, because morality and artistic quality are not connected.  I’d to live in a world where they were, but…I don’t.  the fact is, Birth of a Nation is one of the most revolutionary films of its era setting the stage for most of modern film….and a love letter to the KKK which was horribly racist even by the standards of the time (to say nothing of today).  Maltese Falcon does have homophobic undertones in all its villains it is still a really great movie, there are a lot of great films which are Stalinist propaganda that doesn’t detract from their quality.  Something can be good and still offensive, in fact that is historically more often true than not.  Shakespeare’s history plays are an endorsement of monarchy, the Republic is extremely classiest, Paradise Lost while progressive for the time is majorly sexist. You are almost never going to find a work which isn’t offensive in some way (except Undertale).  The key is recognizing and understand the offensive elements.  I think The Wire is one of the most important things anybody can watch and I will shill the hell out of it any chance I get, but yeah, it has problems with Gender (@afriendtokilltime would know), it doesn’t write its female characters as well as its male and it has a lot of sexist assumptions built into it.

   Let me put it this way, if the Ghost in the Shell movie was a good movie but made the same casting choice, i’d be saying so, I’d be going “Yeah, this is really really racist but it is also a really good movie”…instead it is just terrible on both fronts.  

   Also if you don’t engage with offensive media, you can’t really understand the culture that produces it, like trends in media.  Like the trend of ‘grizzled burly white man losses daughter and finds surrogate daughter who he protects with guns” isn’t really notable on its own but when it becomes a trend you are like “ohhhh” 

TLDR: Quality and morality are separate, but you should always be aware of the moral problems of a work even if you like it.  

Great question, thanks :)  @randomshoes what do you think?

[canvaswolfdoll]

Canvas and Video Games

Have I talked about my Video Game history? Feels like I have, but I also can’t remember doing so. I’m also running low on possible essay topics, and haven’t finished off any media that I can review[1] recently enough to do that instead…

So, hey, you nerds, let’s talk about Video Games!

Because that’s obviously been a massive influence on my life, what with… my entire brand, really. Egads, am I a nerd, sitting here with a New 3DS in a charging cradle in front of me, trying to work out how to do better quality streams and deciding to write an essay about Video Games.

It all started with my brother, old Foxface himself. As the family lore goes, my parents once didn’t want video games in the house, what with… the social stigma, I guess? It was different times, alright?

Point is, my brother’s speech teacher was all ‘Hey, you know what may help with speech? Video Games! Get him video games.’

And so my parents did, despite any reasonable connection or evidence in the above argument.[2]

So they bought him the Sega Genesis, the only non-Nintendo console we’ve ever owned. He played Sonic the Hedgehog! Also… no. It was mostly just Sonic.

Obviously young Canvas was also interested in the wonder of interactive media, and the running rodent, so I’d watch him play, and occasionally step in as Tails or try to play it myself. And I was terrible at it.

Eventually, the Nintendo 64 was released and added to our fleet of hardware, and we never looked back! Ha ha!

That’s the console that we really cut our teeth on, with it’s many beloved games, from Mario 64, Star Fox 64, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (first Zelda game I was ever aware of), and so on and so forth. We ended up with most of the major releases.[3] Also Mischief Makers for some reason.

It was also the height of Video Rental stores, though I never got to choose games to rent. Vulpin stuck with Space Station Silicon Valley which… might deserve an HD Remake, to be honest. Such a bizarre premise people would eat up, nowadays.

The Game Boy Color arrived, carrying Pokemon and various shovelware, plus a few Zelda Games. Tried my best with them, but for the longest time I never actually completed a video game, or got that far, though I did finish Johto in Gold, which is something.

Gamecube came out, the Dreamcast died, and I began to become aware of the surrounding culture as my capabilities to use the internet matured. We also continued a trend of our person game libraries for the generation growing larger than the last. Lots of GameCube games.

Animal Crossing was a Christmas gift early in the cycle, and it was the first video game all of the kids in the family played, to various extents. Elder Sister was her usual perfectionist self, paid off her house, then pretty much stopped playing video games forever afterwards. Little Sister still plays the occasional game (mostly Paper Mario), but largely it’s just Foxface and I who are deep into the gaming scene.

But, like so many things, tracking each and every experience would be a rather sisyphean task, so I should try and refocus here.

Video Games have always been a presence in my life, and thus had its effects on my creative self, from imaginary friends to the little stories I’d crafted pacing the backyard. They were my chief insight into narratives and various genres, design (whether costume or set or mechanical). Nintendo Power helped educate me on the concept of news and industry, as well as the community that could grow from a hobby.

In fact, Pokemon was the main driving force behind the event I joke is the time I’ve ever made friends myself,[4] being approached while reading a book related to the franchise during second grade. It was nice.

Learning about the internet and GameFAQs hinted towards the wider world and culture, and eventually I came upon 8-Bit Theater, which fired up my love of comics in a big way. Comics and stories made from and about elements of video games? That’s so cool!

Then Nintendo Acres happened.

The diminishing use of quality sprite work in video games makes me sad, by the way. There’s just something about the GBA/DS era graphics that invokes joy in my heart, by now even Pokemon has left sprite work behind for models, and even kitschy independent games tend for the super minimalistic version of 8-bit and… whatever one would refer to Atari graphics. Had I artistic talent, I would slather my media in 16-bit evocative of Friends of Mineral Town or The World Ends with You.

In fact, I think that’s one of my main hurdles getting invested in Stardew Valley[5] and Undertale. They just look ugly, even by the standards of kitschy 8-bit style. Frisk is malformed, and all the Stardew characters are in the wrong perspective for the rest of the world. Sprite work can be so beautiful, and yet no one puts in the effort anymore.

Look, sprites aren’t the only aesthetic I love, just so we’re clear. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, I just prefer bright, cheery worlds. Tale of Symphonia is one of my favorite games, if not my absolute number one.[6] There’s just something very nice about a fantasy world that looks lush and vibrant, where you’d be happy to live just for the scenery. The Tales series and Rune Factory also made me very positive about oddly intricate characters in fantasy. I’ve never liked the dirt covered fantasy of… let’s say Skyrim. Fantasy should be about escapism, grand adventure in grand landscapes, not the crushing reality of medieval times.

More Ghibli, less brown is what I want in general.

I may be an oddball for the elements I look for in video games. I like RPGs (obviously) but there’s very few members of the genre I actually enjoy. I flat-out can’t stand western Video Game RPGs.

What I usually look for in games is both a compelling narrative and interesting mechanics, with allowance for the ‘Classics’ and trendsetters.[7] This is something I find lacking in Western-Style RPGs, with their focus on customizing and granular stat advancement. Sure, I understand someone’s desire to try and put a popular character in an Elder Scrolls, or place some curious limitation on themselves while crawling around Fallout’s wastelands.

But because the game needs to allow the player to make whoever they want, it severely cripples the writer’s ability to write the “main” character into the plot, lest they step on the agency of the player. So, from my perspective, we end up in one of two situations: the PC is a non-entity in the plot, with the narrative happening around and to them instead of with them. Or, we get a Mass Effect situation, where they treat it like Choose Your Own Adventure, and you end up shooting a dude when you thought you were just going to arrest him.[8] That’s why I much prefer being handed a protagonist with a history and personality.

Now, those familiar with my tabletop philosophies, and namely my disdain for randomized Character Gen because it takes away player agency might be tilting their head at this inconsistency.

Well, it’s a scale thing. I realize Video Games have a limitation, and thus it’s unreasonable to expect it to cater to you completely. Tabletop, however, allows endless narrative possibilities, because it’s being created in the moment. So, with Video Games, I’m more willing to just let the story take me along as an observer, like a TV Show.

Which is to say, I don’t really project on the Player Character, and am I happy with that. It’s a division between game and story that may seem odd, but it’s what I look for: every piece having a narrative purpose, especially the loser who’s carrying us on our back.

So, narratively, I prefer the style of JRPGs (also, I like Anime and it’s tropes, so…). Yet, I have never really gotten engrossed in any Final Fantasy Game, because list combat is very dull. I mean, grindy, set the auto-attack against opponent style of Western RPGs[10] aren’t much better, but at least it’s got a hint of visual interest.

What am I left with? For a while, Tales of Symphonia, but now I’ve got Rune Factory, with it’s rather simple combat, but still mostly fun (helped along by other elements), and especially Fire Emblem, which what I wish battlemat D&D combat could be: quick, clever, strategic.

Though I’ve only played the 3DS installments thus far, due to lack of accessibility to the early games, which I couldn’t be bothered to try when they were released. Did try the first GBA game to be ported over, but that ended up having the worst, most micromanaging tutorial I’ve ever seen, and thus I am incapable of completing the first level.

I know how to play video games, Fire Emblem. I am aware of the base concept of pressing A. Yeesh. You’re worse than modern Harvest Moon games!

I’ve also never gotten invested in military FPSs, as a mixture of finding the gameplay boring, difficulty mastering it, and mockery whenever I was roped into playing one with friends.[11] In general, I don’t like being in first person view, as I find it limiting to controls, and responding to things that get behind me is annoying, because I flail trying to find the source of damage, then die.

Though, with time, my avoidance has decreased. Portal has a first person camera, but in a mixture of a more puzzle focused game and excellent integration of tutorial into gameplay,[12] it takes an agitating limited camera and makes it very workable, while also teaching the player how to interact with a game in first person.

I also played a little Team Fortress 2, and now Overwatch. The difference with those two over, say, Modern Duty or whatever, is the tone. The two games are competitive, yes, but also light hearted and goofy. Death is cheap and non punishing, the addition of powers make character choice widely different and fun, and, when I do get a little frustrated, it’s very easy for me to take a breath say ‘It’s only a game’ and let it go. Which is important when playing video games, sometimes.

Because that’s what games should always be: entertainment. It’s why I don’t try and force myself through games I’m not enjoying or lose interest in (though obviously I do try and come back and finish the plot) and why I very rarely strive for 100% completion. Because I want to enjoy myself, not engage in tedious work.

It’s also why I don’t care about ESports. Because I don’t care about sports. People doing something very well doesn’t really appeal to me. High-level chess players aren’t interesting to watch or study, seeing two teams of muscled people charge one another isn’t fun, and fight scenes with the usual punching and kicking is dull.

Because, what I look for in most cases is novelty.

Seeing a master craftsman make a thing once can be interesting, just to see the process. See a master craftsman make the same thing a 100 times is uninteresting, because nothing new is happening. When it comes to sports and games, it’s more interesting to see novices play, because they mess up in interesting ways, spot and solve problems, and you get to sit back and go ‘Now, I would’ve done this.’

So, yeah, not a big fan of Counterstrike and League of Legends news, even besides the toxic communities.

Public perception of video games turned rather quick in my lifetime. It used to be such a niche hobby, enjoyed by nerds and children and so such. Yet… well times change, don’t they? Obviously children grew up and brought games along with them, but the hobby has expanded to become mainstream, a console being as necessary as a television, where those without are viewed as bizarre, despite it not being a physical need.[13] We all remember the children who noted their family doesn’t have a TV (or keep it in the closet), and I wonder if XBoxes have gained the same traction.[14]

If only tabletop games could get the same treatment.

Though I still wouldn’t be able to find a group, but still…

Now that I’m an employed adult, I have even more control over the games I play. Which means a Wii U and a custom built PC.

That I built myself, because I also enjoyed Lego as a child.

Between the two, I tend to have a wide enough net to catch the games that interest me. Sure, there’s still some PlayStation exclusives I’d love to try (Journey, Team ICO’s works, plenty of Tales games…)[15] but some of those games are slowly drifting over to Steam, and I already have a backlog, so I can wait it out.

That’s my stumbled musings about video games… Oh! I stream them! Over here! Watch me! I love to entertain and amuse!

Also maybe consider supporting me through patreon? Then I can put more resources into being amusing!

And share any thoughts you have. I’ll listen. Until then…

Kataal kataal.

[1] Did finish rereading Yotsuba&! but there’s nothing to say about besides “Read it!” [2] Certainly didn’t help me. [3] Though not Harvest Moon 64. One day, I will slay that whale. One day… [4] The rest are inherited after old friends leave. [5] Someone on Reddit commented its port to the Switch may help scratch the itch left by Rune Factory. They are, of course, dreadfully wrong. [6] I still dislike do rankings. [7] IE, I’m not a big fan of hallway-bound FPS games, but have played through the Half-Life series. Mostly for the connection to Portal. [8] I know it was in the ‘Renegade’ position, but I thought it’d be played as ‘I’ll risk losing the Shadow Broker to book this small fish’ sort of thing. I’m not very clever, okay?[9] [9] I actually never progressed much further than that. Perhaps it’ll be on CanvasPlays someday. [10] I don’t care if you have a list of subversions of this style, by the way. I really don’t. [11] I once annoyed a former friend for not knowing there’s an aim button. I didn’t know this, because I don’t play FPSs. [12] There’s a very nice Extra Credits about this somewhere. [13] Though as a cultural need… [14] Nintendo Consoles, of course and unfortunately, being considered the off-brand. [15] the PS3 port of Tides of Destiny. Yes, it’s a disgrace of a Rune Factory game, and it was also on the wii but… well, sometimes I’m an insane collector![16] [16] I don’t even need a PS3. I can get it used for, like, five bucks from GameStop…

[ddrkirbyisq]

Well, let's see... We made a game for Ludum Dare 46!  Was stressful but fun.  We still need to make some improvements to the menu and such, and I'm working on the mobile port (just got done debugging a really annoying issue -- apparently CPUParticles crash the app on iOS unless you have a default environment!).  You can check it out here if you'd like in the meantime, or just wait for the improved version. (and yes I'm fully aware that most of you are reading the copy-pasted version of this that won't even have the inline link) Been continuing to do alttpr seeds -- the latest one I had terrible luck on, and last-locationed an item that I skipped early on.  Bleh.  It happens, I guess. My birthday came and went.  Of course, I was waist deep in the middle of LD when it happened, so I had no time at all to really think about it, but you know, that's how it goes -- far from the first time this has happened, actually.  It was nice hearing from a bunch of people, even if I didn't really process any of it until afterwards. The stress of Ludum Dare along with some other stuff resulted in me getting a sort of anxiety attack on Saturday night, which was not very fun at all.  I don't really get these, at least not like this where I wake up in the middle of the night with a bad feeling in my chest and have trouble sleeping again.  I've definitely felt that sensation of stress and/or anxiety in my chest before, but very rare for it to just prop up so suddenly in the middle of sleeping.  Thankfully, that seemed to have been an isolated incident, though for those couple of nights after LD I was still sort of cooling down from it all.  I imagine I should probably find some time to do Tai Chi again as a sort of catch-all physical/mental integrated feel-good practice. I started up my playthrough of Illusion of Gaia.  No SNES-era game is without its faults (well, perhaps no game ever, really), and Illusion of Gaia, like most other games of the time, doesn't really have the best or most well-put together story.  But what the games of this time lack in narrative and plot they really make up for in charm and atmosphere.  There is so much that can be carried by a game's look, feel, and sound...see Secret of Mana for a perfect example of this. Illusion of Gaia is a pretty significant step up from Soul Blazer in that the dungeons (at least from what I remember) are quite a lot more interesting to go through, and combat and movement in general is just more smooth, more active, and less tedious.  The environments are a charm to explore and move to as well, with multi-level buildings...just the simple act of running around (you can =run=!) feels great.  And of course the music is great too -- the Itory Village music really sticks out as a really really good "peaceful town" theme and I'm actually still sampling the pan flute instrument from the soundtrack in my tracks today. It really took a looooong time for video game narrative and writing to catch up.....and even then, the stories that are actually poignant and well-told (looking at you, Journey, Undertale, and omg One Shot) are so few and far between.  To be fair, I have yet to go through both Terranigma and Mother 3, so there's that.  But it's really hard to think of games that tell a good story, even thinking about all of the games in this entire period of time.  Maybe FF6?  FF6 certainly has a LOT going on, but I don't know if I've ever really felt the narratives of final fantasy games really compel me.  When I think about compelling narratives I think of really well put-together environments, I think of well-done moments, I think of storytelling that shows instead of tells.  There is a scene in the water in Cave Story, for example, which does this really poignantly.  And even the "story" (if it could even be called that) of Yume Nikki, really makes you think about things a bit.  But I don't think any games from the beloved SNES era really capture any of those feelings.  Our art form really needed a lot of time to mature, and perhaps beyond that, it really needed the influence of indie games, which simply did not exist back then.  You see all of these one-person and small-team games like Yume Nikki, Undertale, OneShot, Night in the Woods and others, really take risks in their storytelling, because the creator really has a story to tell, and because that story doesn't have to be diluted.  These creators can go out on a limb and tell a story that perhaps won't have the mass-market appeal of a shounen hero fantasy, but will really connect with people when it matters.  I know because we've tried too, and dare I say succeeded.  And it's a wonderful thing, to connect with your audience in that way.

[shirlleycoyle]

Nintendo Makes It Clear that Piracy Is the Only Way to Preserve Video Game History

After more than a decade online, Nintendo will be shutting down the company’s Wii Shop Channel this Wednesday. Nintendo removed the ability to purchase in-store currency (Wii Points) last March, and starting January 30, users will no longer be able to purchase any WiiWare or Virtual Console games from the service.

On its surface, the company’s move is easy to brush aside as the natural, evolutionary demise of a service tied to an aging console. Especially given Nintendo gave customers plenty of time to spend any remaining Wii Points long before the storefront was shuttered. But the day Nintendo pulls the plug on the Wii Store Channel should be a strong warning those who care about video game preservation, and any consumer who uses a digital store: We often don’t truly own products we buy digitally, and when one of these digital stores go down, piracy is often the only way to preserve its history.

As it stands, even after the store officially closes, Wii users will be able download any past titles they’ve purchased and downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel, provided they can fit them on either the Wii’s internal storage or an additional SD card. However, Nintendo said that in a yet unknown point in the future, the company will close all services relating to the Wii Shop Channel, “including the ability to redownload WiiWare and Virtual Console games, as well as the Wii System Transfer Tool, which transfers data from Wii to the Wii U system.”

That means that if the games users bought from the Wii Shop Channel are not already downloaded, or if whatever storage device users put them on is destroyed, they’ll lose them for good. Users could buy the games again from the Wii U’s Virtual Console, and they might be able to get them from Nintendo’s new subscription service on the Switch, but they’ll have to pay for it.

“What sucks here is that Nintendo didn’t build the infrastructure to allow people to support these games,” Frank Cifaldi, the founder of the Video Game History Foundation, told Motherboard in a phone interview. “It might be indicative how new Nintendo was to the Internet during the Wii era. Maybe they didn’t build it with the future in mind.”

Nintendo did not respond to a Motherboard request for comment.

“I’m not worried about the complete absence of zeros of ones from the world, piracy will always find a way”

The Wii Shop Channel wasn’t the first time Nintendo allowed users to download games (the Satellaview offered downloadable content way back in 1995), but it was a good, legal way to play many of the company’s classic games outside of tracking down old, physical copies. The Wii Virtual Console offered hundreds of games. At the moment. Nintendo Switch Online offers only 31 NES games. While Nintendo said it’s going to expand this library, likely with well-known classics like other Zelda and Mario games, there’s no guarantee it will offer more obscure games like Clu Clu Land, which was available from the Wii Virtual Console, and is still for sale on the Wii U Virtual Console. Will Nintendo keep offering obscure, old games and spend money on hosting them on the company’s servers if they’re not going to turn a profit?

“I think the fact that you’ve haven’t seen so much obscure stuff since [the Virtual Console] tells you something about Nintendo’s issues [with less known games],” Cifaldi said.

In the digital era, companies increasingly pull the rug out from under products consumers may falsely assume they actually own, notes Case Western Law Professor Aaron Perzanowski, whose last book The End Of Ownership highlighted this problem extensively.

“This situation is most reminiscent of Microsoft’s decision in 2016 to shut down its Xbox Fitness platform,” Perzanowski told Motherboard in an email. “Customers who thought they had purchased exercise content were told by Microsoft that it would no longer be available to download or access. The decision earned Microsoft criticism at the time, but given the relatively small user base, the story didn’t seem to get much traction.”

The quest to undermine consumer software ownership extends well beyond video games. As part of their effort to abuse copyright to monopolize repair, manufacturers like GM and John Deere have long claimed consumers don’t actually own the software in the vehicles and tractors they’ve spent thousands of dollars on.

The trend of eroding consumer ownership post sale isn’t just reserved to software. Hardware manufacturers now routinely brick expensive electronics they no longer want to support, or downgrade a video game console’s functionality post sale, again confusing customers who thought they owned a product, only to suddenly discover post-purchase caveats.

In Nintendo’s case, Perzanowski theorizes that the company either didn’t want to pony up the cash to protect the integrity of consumer purchases, or it simply wanted to force users to buy those same titles all over again.

“It could just be a pure economic calculus; the store costs more to maintain than it generates,” Perzanowski said. “If there are third party titles in the store, Nintendo might be unwilling to extend existing licensing agreements for those games. Or the decision might be related to some other platform or service Nintendo plans to roll out in the future that would otherwise compete with the Wii store.”

When companies make it too difficult for consumers to get the content they want (or hell, already own), users tend to flock to piracy as an alternative. Studies have shown that the best way to counter this copyright infringement is to focus on innovation; like making content cheaper and easier to access. In this case, Nintendo’s doing the exact opposite.

The company has made a habit of going after the largest, illegal distributors of its old games recently: ROM sites. As we wrote back in August, when Nintendo took down some of the biggest ROM sites on the internet, many people, including game developers, lost the only way they could access these games. Nintendo is well within its legal rights to take down ROM sites, but as Cifaldi notes, that puts video game preservationists in a difficult situation.

“Right now I can’t legally add any of these games to our library,” he said. “There’s no legal way of doing it.”

The fact that it’s illegal to download these games hasn’t stopped people from doing it. While the big ROM sites are gone and no clear alternative has popped up, it is still possible to find copies of all the games the Wii Virtual Console offered on the internet. For an accurate historical record, the Internet Archive is now even hosting the Wii Shop Channel’s HTML frontend (meaning the icons, manuals, descriptions), so future generations could see what it looked like.

“I’m not worried about the complete absence of zeros of ones from the world, piracy will always find a way, I just am very worried about everyday people being able to find and discover this stuff and be inspired by it,” Cifaldi said. “My big concern with video games going away like this is them not inspiring the artists of the future.”

Cifaldi noted that the work of Toby Fox, developer of the indie hit Undertale, is rooted in access to old games, as are the developers of Sonic Mania (widely considered to be the first good Sonic games in years), who got their start making fan games by hacking ROMs.

“It was the backbone of a commercial product that was making a lot of money for the company. I don’t know how we’ll make new art from old games,” Cifaldi said.

Given the complicated nature of these debates, many users may not fully comprehend just how they’re being screwed. It might seem like everything you bought from iTunes or Steam will be yours forever because Apple and Valve are too big to fail, but if those companies ever decide that it’s too expensive to let users download what they paid for, there’s no guarantee you’ll have access your games and movies. Keep in mind that the Wii wasn’t some unknown, failure of a device. It was a massive success, with over 100 million units sold, making it one of Nintendo’s most popular consoles. The Wii U, which is the best place to get these games once the Wii Store Channel is gone, sold only 13 million units. There are potentially millions of Wii owners who could lose access to their games unless they transfer them to a Wii U, which is not easy to get these days. Nintendo stopped manufacturing the Wii U in 2016, which has made them harder to find. You could buy a new Wii U from Amazon, but it will cost around $600.

Other consumers may simply view such behavior as unavoidable, Perzanowski said.

“Unfortunately, I think consumers are starting to see these moves as inevitable,” he said. “Especially for sophisticated digital consumers, like gamers, there is a growing sense that companies are likely to abuse their authority in ways that harm consumers.”

Whatever Nintendo’s motivation, there’s going to be plenty more behavior where this came from from other industry giants, and regulators like the FTC should do a better job ensuring that companies live up to their promises when it comes to product ownership.

Consumers need to do a better job fighting back as well, Perzanowski said.

“Consumers need to be vocal in their objections to these sort of bait and switch tactics,” he argued. “They need to develop a longer memory and vote with their wallets. These firms rely on consumers getting over their temporary outrage.”

Nintendo Makes It Clear that Piracy Is the Only Way to Preserve Video Game History syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[bublp0pr]

UT time rant

i realised that i never actually discussed my rantings about undertale’s time vagueness, did i? Ohhhhh yessss. This is going to be a fun waste of an hour (insane and evil laughter with conveniently timed thunderstorm in the distance)

Where do i even start?

201X

Ok. How about i start with something obvious? 201X. What the hell does that even MEAN? It’s genius on Toby’s part. Having released the game in a year whose first 3 digits are 201, we can interpret it to just mean some year within the decade beginning in 2010 and ending before 2020. But if someone was dedicated enough to the game to still be playing it all those years later in say 2021, then there’s a whole plethora of choices available to you to justify how you intend on interpreting it. How about i break some of them down? 

Well, the most simple view would be to just assume that the date is still maintains that meaning - that Chara fell into Mt Ebott within the previous decade under my hypothetical example. But if we’re letting this date exist in a time other than the present then why stop there? Everything that occurs within the game to give us some sort of indication of a time reference is circumstantial because the game is set some indefinite time AFTER 201X with Chara falling. 

Now, that being said there are likely some arguments to be made for certain objects we know existed at the same time as Chara - such as a video camera. BUT- and here’s another BIG THING we need to consider here, how do you know that monsters weren’t just more technologically advanced than humans? Look at the technology introduced in the game! The ramifications of a trans-dimensional box in your PHONE! A mass geothermal power system placed directly in the CORE of everyone’s city but that is SO SAFE that no one even worries about it! Technology that literally operates in tandem with MAGIC -by which i mean THE ESSENCE MANIPULATED BY THE SOUL ITSLEF- in some circumstances! This is startlingly advanced stuff. If we assume that monsters WERE more advanced than humans, then do we really have ANY reference to what time era Chara existed in on the surface? My opinion is no. You could argue that were it the case that Chara existed in a time that significantly predated certain concepts than integration with a society who did have this stuff would be difficult but- and again, TIME STUFF TOBY! TIMEEEEE- we have no idea how long Chara stayed with the Dreemurs before they died. So things like the video camera could have been completely foreign to them BEFORE they fell and they just slowly learnt about them down in the mountain. 

‘But wait!’ I hear myself saying because i’m not presumptuous enough to assume anyone is actually going to read this and ask this question lol. ‘The 201 still needs to mean SOMETHING though right? That narrows down possible dates a little...’ Ohoho I’d be wrong. First: the date could be set in the past, in like the year 201 AD, 201 BC or any year within the decade 2020-2010 BC. OR it could be set in the past/present/future of 2010-2020 AD. Second: the X is a vague substitution that, without context can mean ANYTHING. That means it can mean more than one digit which makes the possible date as infinite as the possible values of X (i’m tempted to say more infinite because obviously there’s an AD and BC version for each value but that’s not how infinity works. Figured i’d say so for perspective anyway). Third: since when was 201X a year???? Take another look at that moment in the opening menu flashback, because i assure you that the vague number below the picture of a mountain has NO OTHER INDICATION TOWARDS ITS MEANING WHATSOEVER. 201X could be a day and month, it could be a month and year, heck 201X could just as easily be the geographical location of the mountain by some reference standard. X stand to mean ANYTHING AT ALL. It doesn’t have to be a number.

Is your mind sufficiently blown yet? Because there’s a few other possibilities i haven’t even dared to go into yet. We can’t say with 100% accuracy haha but it’s a good bet that Undertale isn’t actually the reality of our history. Which makes the game a work of FICTION within a FICTIONAL universe. With that comes creative freedom in how time works in general! How society came to agree to understand, measure and interpret time; how history uses time as a reference to the present etc. And even worse, there isn’t even enough evidence to say that it’s set in a real world setting either in terms of humanity. History could be completely different! So would having a date really mean anything to us?! Ok, ridiculous stuff aside, let’s assume that this is the real world again. So what if the date was how monsters measured time instead of us? Do they measure time the same way? Maybe they’re measuring from when they were trapped underground. How would we know?! 

Final conundrum (and this one was actually brought to my attention by a really good web comic actually) : what if the use of determination to reset time didn’t apply to the outside world? The interpretations of this piece of information alone are vast, like the underground exisiting in a closed time loop or having a separate line of time running parallel to the surface that becomes more delayed with each reload or reset. However you consider it, it makes using time from one world not relatively correct to using time in another. (We are not given evidence that Chara actually ever does use determination to alter time within their life underground but there is evidence to suggest use of resetting occurring because of the 6 souls which sufficiently messes us up if we want to use the date as any sort of reference for anything)

So basically, giving us the 4 characters 201X at the start of the game might as well mean nothing to us.

Lengths of time between events

Ok. I want to say now that 201X is the ONLY time we’re ever given any date. So the fact we can’t even use that means we have no idea exactly when anything happened. But that doesn’t matter so much right? I mean, who cares as long as you can follow the stretch of time the game actually does exist in. Right? Hahahahahahaha. 

I’m just going to list all the lengths of time we DON’T know in the game. Take a minute to think over each one.

How long was the war between humans and monsters?

How long did monsters exist underground before the first human came?

How long did Chara stay underground before they decided on the plan with Asriel?

How long after Chara made plan with Asriel did they actually go through with it? For all we know they could’ve been older when they actually carried it out. (not that OLDER means anything when we don’t know how old they were when they made the plan lol. But atleast we knew they were kids then)

How did it take after Asriel died for Toriel to leave Asgore and go to the ruins? Or, to pose a better question, how long had Toriel been in the ruins when Frisk eventually came around?

How long after Asriel’s death did the next human arrive in the underground?

What sort of lengths of time were there between each human falling underground?

How long did each human spend in the underground before Asgore eventually killed them?

How long after Asriel’s death did Alphys inject enough determination into his flower to awaken Flowey?

Depending on the answer to that last question, did Flowey actually exist as the same time as any of the humans who fell? Or was Frisk the first they met? (i’m not counting Chara obviously)

As a rough estimate, how many resets do you reckon Flowey went through before Frisk came in and messed with that?

Unless you think about one of the theories about surface time and underground time not occurring exactly simultaneously because of determination tampering with things, obviously waiting for Frisk had been the longest run Flowey had ever done. How long had he had to wait in that run before they fell? [This one i find really interesting because it gives me an idea of how long he spent playing in each run normally before he would reset too]

How long did it take for Frisk to go through the underground? Is that length of time the same between pacifist and genocide timelines? Can we use real game time as a reference or not?

How long had Napstablook been abandoned by Mettaton for when frisk fell?

How long did it take for Alphys to conduct the amalgamate research?

For how long had Alphys been keeping the amalgamates secret from their families when Frisk fell?

For how long has Papyrus been training under Undyne?

How long has Undyne been head of the Royal Guard?

Are you thoroughly concerned about how little you know about the game yet? These are all things that would give more meaning to the storyline as well. Now, on some of these points you might think, well obviously we can use lifespan as a reference. BUT WE CAN’T. Because

We don’t know a damn about monster life spans

The only info we’re given is based on boss monsters. And that conveniently tells us that THEY DON’T AGE WHEN THEY DON’T HAVE LIVING CHILDREN. And since Asriel is dead, well we have nothing to work with. What really messes me up though is that the only constants we know for sure about across the two points in time, Chara’s and Frisk falling, is Asgore, Toriel and Gerson. Asgore and Toriel teach us nothing because THEY DON’T AGE. With Gerson aswell you might think haha i’ve got this cracked until you realise you have no idea how long a monster’s life span is, how long it takes a monster to reach old age and exactly what stage of aging Gerson is at. May i point out that NONE of the other monsters were mentioned?! That means that for all we know they weren’t born yet. But we have no idea. Were most of the monsters we know alive during the war? I’d have to say probably not but at the same time i have no substantial evidence either way. Another down side of this is that we don’t know how old any monster is in the game, how old the monsters are relative to eachother (like, is sans older than papyrus for example? we don’t know) and how old monsters are relative to Frisk. Because it puts an entirely new spin on everything if the only reason Frisk was called kid and my child was because they were younger than 100, for example, which was the age bracket of a child in their eyes. But we also don’t know Frisk’s age so who the hell knows anything? 

Let’s sum this up

The point of this game is that we don’t have reference for ANYTHING so that we can fill in the details our self. It gives a fan infinite freedom to customise the experience however they want. What this has resulted in is a large community of differing opinions about everything, with everything being technically valid which some consider bad but i just consider fascinating. It’s the best of all worlds really. I hate how vague things are at times when i want a canonically pure origin point for an argument, but i really shouldn’t complain. It’s beautifully done to be honest. And if you never asked these questions you’d never even know how sneaky it is. That’s how good it is. 

So yeah. Time. Undertale seems to have an issue with it. 

[nonsensical-questions]

Undertale: era of integrity going public + request for help

Howdy y’all after showing off some of my other project stuff it seemed to have gotten fairly positive reception, which was nice but I didn’t think much would come of it, but after a while I had a feeling that I should practice making a game before it’s too late and as much as I love sensetale I really think the combat would be too much for me to handle coding wise, but then I had an idea, I have some sprite for melody so why not just test with her, I added more and more and suddenly I wanted to see where this goes so any coders, sprite artists, and musicians if you would like to see EOI become a real thing I need your help I’d still be coding and helping but I can’t do it all on my own

What does this mean for sensetale or the other projects I showed off? Well sensetale is still on hiatus but I’m hoping that by actually practice coding and working on sprites I’ll improve enough to be happy with what I want for sensetale, as for my other projects I do wanna finish them and I will before go full EOI but it just matters how my motivation and creativity will take me, but sensetale will return at some point I promise

But if you have anyway you could help in any way it would be much appreciated

You can contact me here, my discord ( squeakpeaks ) or my gamejolt account

For your consideration: melody

[nonsensical-questions]

Well since I can finally post this publicly, here is my submission for the Undertale comic contest, the journey and tale of Alvia, the purple soul of perseverance, in this story we start in the middle of Alvia's journey, where a turning point is set and Alvia must face their strongest challenge yet... a giant turtle with a hammer? I hope y'all enjoy! i put a lot of effort into this and i hope whoever wins this year gets the praise they deserve! everyone worked so so hard this year and while we don't have a lot of submissions it was fun to see people's stuff! Please note that Undertale: pushing on was inspired by UTY but is non-canon to it, I have my own headcanons about UT that conflict with UTY and while that is fine it means that Alvia and Clover are non canon to each others properties or any other soul game, still I recommend you play the game, it has a lot of work put in it! this being said Alvia might be semi canon to Era of Integrity since I do try to directly imply something about Melody in this. if you enjoyed this check out the other comics in the contest! they aren't posted here yet but i'm sure they will be: https://undersprite.tumblr.com

and if enjoy how i write and do my characters please check out Undertale: Era of Integrity , it's my other soul project and i'm looking for people to to join the team and help make it a reality, anything would be helpful: https://gamejolt.com/games/yournameismelody/900336